August 14, 2008

I walked this path. I trusted her, I lost trust, I questioned trust and understood it.
Its been a long journey but I hope this helps.

I want us to think about the last time we put our trust or faith in someone and for some reason it ended up in a fiasco. I’m sure that we have all gone through this bit of personal regret while trusting others, and I’m even sure that somewhere we tell ourselves never to trust again, especially with matters very close to our heart. Somewhere and somehow we are losing faith in people and humanity in general. In all this, I ask just one question!

~what kind of a lesson is life teaching us about trust?~

The true reality is, we haven’t understood trust the way it really is, just as the many other things that we believe we know everything about. All that bickering, crying and sulking over blaming others might just go up in smoke after this read is complete. Let me make a quick analysis.

~what are we doing when we trust someone?~

We are placing our happiness in their hands. It could be something as simple as asking a friend to keep a secret from others; a rule that this friend now needs to follow. And when they do as we expect them to, we become or remain happy. The minute they let go of that rule or boundary we placed around them, we see them as letting us down and in turn we’re unhappy with them.
To begin with, is it fair that we put a boundary wall around people we care for as friends or family? Or is it us caring for ourselves and expecting them to care for us too? Trade places for a second now; how would we feel if we were made responsible to keep others happy most of the time? (or in other words carry their emotional baggage?) I know that most of us selflessly do it, but even carrying ones own weight gets tiring. Good friends think wisely before burdening others with their weight. When they do, they make it a point to pay back.

~true happiness and misconception of trust~

If we understand that true happiness comes from within ourselves, then we will also understand that the happiness that comes from fulfilling the ‘trust’ bestowed on others is highly superficial. Somewhere even though we may deny it, we are really seeking acceptance and attention from the ones we trust. It has everything to do with making us happy and not them. Further more, the truth of the matter is that we haven’t yet accepted ourselves for who we are. We lack healthy self esteem and we constantly need someone else to fill in our voids. Hence the ‘trust’ we think we know is a pure misconception.

~true trust & faith~

Trust in others is having faith that they will do their best even though they are vulnerable to mistakes like we all are. Its only human to err. We trust that someday they will learn from their mistakes (if they believe its a mistake) and do the best for themselves; and that’s all that matters. Trusting others with something important means that you are happily ready to accept failure when it happens just as much as you would happily accept success. It’s a package deal and anything less is hypocrisy and leads to the concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness is nothing a but an unhappy seed that arises when trust is misunderstood. More on this in a later post.

~trusting others trails trusting ourselves~

In reality, we need to first trust ourselves to find happiness through a deeper understanding of ourself and not through superficial means. When we lose trust in others, or claim that others have broken our trust, we are really saying that we do not understand the true concept of trust. We have in turn lost trust in ourselves. Its only when we trust ourselves completely, can we trust others with ease. Whatever wrong they do will not affect the true happiness we get from within ourselves. For the fact that every time we superficially trust and it fails us should ring a bell that somewhere we got something figured wrong. Trusting others must never define our happiness; just theirs. Trusting ourselves defines ours.

~what about trusting others to do something I don’t know how to do myself?~

If we want to do something right and its very important to us, its best to do it ourselves. The process of doing it ourselves has many hidden lessons of life. If we don’t know how, we can always learn. If we don’t have the time, we can pay a professional to do it to our expectations. If we just want to find excuses, it boils down to the fact that we don’t trust ourselves enough.

PS. I have faith in you because I have faith in myself. The time to learn is immaterial.

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Once upon a time, I was suicidal. But today, I look at it as the best thing that ever happened to me. That was the time I needed answers; answers to questions about the pain in my life. I started from the very bottom and questioned my entire existence. With the help of a number of sites and well written books, I managed to get many healing answers. I proved to myself how easy it was to be secured and happy within. Today I share with you summarized concepts of what I learned over the years from the very many wise that have walked this same very path. Knowledge is power & sharing is caring.

The existing content on this site will be constantly reviewed and enhanced. I track how you got to my page and what you are looking for; I use this to better the content. Please excuse the timely edits, typos and grammatical excursions if any. I believe that knowledge is like us; as we evolve, it does too. Change is the only constant.
If you wish to share your views, you can always email them to me @ evansnf [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Love & Best Wishes,
Evans